other critics

Critics Love Lanvin’s ‘Suh-weet’ Party Clothes, Horyn Pans Haider Ackermann

From left: Haider Ackermann, Comme des Garcons, and Lanvin; Imaxtree
From left: Haider Ackermann, Comme des Garcons, and Lanvin; Imaxtree

THE HITS:

Comme des Garçons

•   “Ms. Kawakubo is the only designer who thinks like an artist … Her latest collection seemed to turn couture, and the fashion world’s obsession with iconic shapes and structure, on its ear … Strikingly, these designs are extraordinarily simple … not to suggest that anyone can do them (you would need her patternmakers) but rather that anyone can understand them.” [NYT]

•  “[The show] was a telling reminder of why Comme des Garçons and its designer Rei Kawakubo have achieved such cult status. [Kawakubo’s vision] is fashion at its most lovingly distilled … Call it fashion for the purists.” [Fashion Wire Daily]

•  “[T]his show was breathtaking in its boldness and vivacity and was cheered to the echo … Ms. Kawakubo was in a class of her own. The two elements, shape and color, were played to the max.” [IHT]

•   “Rei Kawakubo chose this particular moment to present a show that glorified the flat … If it had been a Dada performance in Zurich’s Cabaret Voltaire in the second decade of the twentieth century, its genius would have been galvanic. As a fashion show in the second decade of the twenty-first century, its satire felt a little obvious. But its savage point was well taken.” [Style.com]

•   “It was fabulous … Kawakubo did indeed focus on two often-challenging dimensions: those of major volume and color. She had her radical way with both, and everyone left smiling. Wow, indeed.” [WWD]

•  “They were stiff and they were bold — a minimalist yet equally flamboyant sensibility … all the elements you would usually associate with being loud and cluttered [were] somehow reduced to something simple, even when exaggerated and accentuated shapes came into the equation. But that’s Kawakubo’s speciality.” [Vogue UK]

See the Full Fall 2012 Comme des Garçons Collection.

Lanvin

•  “The clothes captured that [party] spirit … one of [Elbaz’s] best Lanvin shows in a while … The collection caught many of the trends, but with a devil-may-care attitude that turned the most decked-out looks into a kind of gantlet.” [NYT]

•   “[A] tigerish display of protective seduction … Elbaz took his evocative style somewhere new … for this decade-anniversary he gave the clothes a notably tougher finish.” [Fashion Wire Daily]

•   “[T]hese outfits were suh-weet in their body-enhancing shape; their intense, delicious color; their feeling of wayward fun … Underneath all the dazzle, he gives you depth and a hint of darkness.” [Style.com]

•  “[T]he clothes were beautiful, bold and at times, riotously fanciful. And always, they made sense … It all made for a wonderful, frenetic romp — one that should continue to the selling floor.” [WWD]

•  ”It was a technicolour Lanvin dream And then we got a bit glitzy and glamorous … Party dresses were suitably pretty special with double skirts of pouf and puff … More jewels garnished more necks and elbow-length gloves gave a sense of elegant nonchalance.” [Vogue UK]

See the Full Fall 2012 Lanvin Collection.

MIXED:

Haider Ackermann

•  “His dramatic compositions [impress editors] like a stun gun. They’re knocked senseless. They forget that this stuff has been around the track before: in the diva years of Gianfranco Ferré, for one … [Ackermann] feeds into the worst values and assumptions of the industry, which almost always finds a way to confuse effect for fashion. Mr. Ackermann is all effect.” [NYT]

•  “Something of a fashion triumph was achieved … The clothes he presented today, while dripping in drama, were entirely comprehensible and clearly far more commercial.” [Fashion Wire Daily]

•  “The waisted silhouettes that were the results of all that draping were the best he’s ever done — a spot-on mixture of the sublime and the salable, and he’s got the most sophisticated color sense of anyone in Paris … You can add this to the short list of shows this season that brought the crowd to its feet.” [Style.com]

•  “Extraordinary! Haider Ackermann continued on his trajectory of awe. His show captivated with beauty as it intrigued, on one level with a moody aura, and on another, with extreme complications of cut (surely a pattern maker’s nightmare). The combination made for a fashion lover’s delight.” [WWD]

•  “[A] typically strong and sensual offering … Yet for all its strength, it was a quiet and paced show — a leisurely finale to show that he is working to his own agenda and his own woman.” [Vogue UK]

See the Full Fall 2012 Haider Ackermann Collection.

Celine

•  “It felt incomplete, or maybe it was just a taste of things, and I thought the oversized fit seemed just a little off. Still, she can make a cool statement.” [NYT/On the Runway]

•   “[Philo] took feminist fashion a step forward … The designer did not make her clothes strict and masculine. That smash-the-glass-ceiling, dress-like-the-men era is so definitely over … The effect was of a purposeful woman, wearing useful, easy-to-move-in clothes, but nothing that announced her as a female of the species.” [IHT]

•  “[Zippers] gave a literal edge to the clothes … All of which pointed to a punky zest … The coats were the collection’s headliner — there was wickedness in the one that spun to reveal a furry tail of red … There was silhouette action here.” [Style.com]

•  “Philo amped up the silhouette of her famous sporty luxe … [S]he grounded her proposals in complete reality — tony clothes for everyday life … The best of it bore the chic simplicity befitting fashion’s current minimalist queen … It’s hard to imagine whom Philo had in mind with her colorblocks. Most likely, they were a one-season snafu.” [WWD]

•  “[I]t all felt very special … Ultra-modern and exciting with the unexpected beautiful colour palette to match, if you’re going to do this look, it has to be done well — and in the hands of Philo it always is. There’s a fashion trust you can rely on.” [Vogue UK]

See the full Fall 2012 Celine collection.

Critics Love Lanvin’s ‘Suh-weet’ Party Clothes, Horyn Pans Haider Ackermann